Biological invasions

Its impact in Chile

Invasive alien species (IAS) represents one of the major threats to biodiversity, and is considered as one of the major agents in global change. Globalization process is deteriorating biogeographic barriers created and sustained biodiversity, producing an increase without precedents in the IAS, which are introduced accidentally or intentionally to the different ecosystems.

Once the species have been introduced to the new territory, it can turn into an invasive species, which its capable to establish new natural populations and therefore disperse itself to new territories, dominating the landscape.

Chile is no stranger to the problem. In line with the wild/ naturalized IAS catalog in Chile, coordinated and developed by LIB (by its initials in spanish), there are 1,119 species (of 13 taxonomics groups) present in the country. Some of these species causes losses at a productive level, and they are a threat to the biodiversity conservation efforts inside the country. This is very relevant, because between native species, we can count a large number of endemic species.